It’s Black Friday weekend, a time when we’re all overloaded with deals, offers and bargains. It can seem like the entire world is trying to persuade you to buy new music gear. But I am here to remind you of an important fact – new gear probably isn’t the answer to your problems.
Perhaps you’re struggling to finish tracks and think that you just need more plugins? You probably don’t. Maybe you think your music isn’t good enough because you’re using a digital synth rather than a genuine analogue one? That’s almost certainly not true. Do you think that better monitors will instantly make your mixes sound better? It’s unlikely.
Yes, new gear can help us do things quicker, or explore new ideas, or make the overall music-making process easier. But the fundamental truth is that some of the best electronic music of all time has been made with limited, cheap setups. Essentially, more gear does not necessarily equate to better music.
With all that being said, while I don’t want you to think that you need new gear this Black Friday weekend, you might still want it – and I totally get that. I’m lucky enough to review synths and drum machines for a living, and I know how exciting getting your hands on some new creative tool can be.
Although it's not always the route to better music, getting to grips with a new instrument, controller or effect can be a great way to spark creativity. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of exploring the features and capabilities of something, only to hit upon one of those lighting-in-a-bottle moments, when the pieces suddenly come together and you realise, ‘wow, what if I tried doing *this*!?’
With that in mind, I’ve been searching through this weekend’s best synth and drum machine deals, and these are my recommendations. I won’t promise that any of them will make you a better producer or musician. But if you’ve been waiting for Cyber Weekend to drop your hard earned money on something new, exciting and fun, then these are the deals to check out.
I’m going to focus on hardware gear here, but there’s a lot of solid deals on software about this weekend too, which you can keep tabs on in our Black Friday plugin deals hub page.
US Deals
I’m a really big fan of Korg’s recent 37-key digital synths, which each put an innovative spin on classic synth formats. Modwave II is one of the best in the range. It’s a wavetable synth, loosely inspired by Korg’s cult classic DW-8000, but its approach is genuinely innovative, allowing users to craft custom oscillators by blending different wavetables and applying a range of playback modifiers.
Yes, it’s purely digital. And the plastic build and keybed are nothing to write home about. But there’s so much depth and power to this synth. If you’re looking for an instrument that will have you lost down sound design rabbit holes for hours, this is a great purchase for $679.
Sticking to Korg for a moment, Sweetwater is also offering $10 off for most of Korg’s Volca range this weekend. That’s not a massive discount, but the Volcas were a bargain to begin with – and they’re great fun for the price. Personally, I think the Volca Bass and Volca Drum are the ones to go for. Watch our video ranking below for more.
I’ve been using Ableton Live for almost 20 years and, I’ll be honest, as much as versions 1 and 2 of Push impressed me, I drifted away from both and ended up reverting to using a mouse and keyboard. Push 3 is a different story though – I’ve been using it since before it came out last year, and I absolutely love it.
The MPE pads are fantastic, and Ableton has finally cracked its goal of making a controller that feels like a proper instrument. Paired with expressive presets from Live’s Drift and Meld synths, I find Push really expressive (it’s great for me who is, I’ll admit, not a great keys player).
I have the standalone version of Push, which I really rate, although honestly I think the non-CPU-equipped model would be fine for most users, unless you’re planning on performing live or really desperate to be free of your laptop. Either way, both are available at Sweetwater with some sizable discounts this weekend.
Roland's SH-4d was one of my favourite releases of last year, and Amazon has it down to the lowest price I’ve seen this weekend.
Like a lot of Roland’s current crop of hardware instruments, the SH-4d makes use of the company’s Zen-Core engine, but its unique design sets it apart from the bulk of the company’s Zen-Core keyboards. The SH-4d is a five-part groovebox, with four polyphonic synth channels and one multi-track drum machine. Its sound engine makes use of a mixture of virtual analogue, digital synthesis and sampling in order to offer a spectrum of sounds that range from vintage gear emulations to modern tones and an array of percussive kits.
It’s a unique and creative machine, and personally I find it very inspiring. Its characteristic design means that it won’t suit everyone – the lack of a keyboard being an obvious downside for some users – but for less than $400 it’s a lot of synth power for the money.
Donner is better known for its cheap guitars, electronic drums and pianos, but has recently entered the synth market. The B1 was its debut instrument, which takes heavy influence from Roland’s iconic acid machine the TB-303.
The B1 doesn’t look like much – its grey styling looks more like something you’d use to calculate your taxes – but it sounds seriously great. Its analogue oscillator and filter nail the aggressive tones associated with the 303, and the included drive and delay effects really bring the sound to life.
With Donner’s extra 25% this weekend, you can pick up the B1 for $103.99. Trust me, this sounds way better than any $100 analogue synth has any right to.
UK Deals
Waldorf’s Iridium synths are seriously powerful machines. While the top-end Iridium Keys and Desktop have the most bells and whistles, the cut down Iridium Core still has a hell of a lot of power for the money, and at a price only a little over a grand, I think it’s a bit of a bargain.
The Core is a 12 voice digital synth with three oscillators per voice. It makes use of a variety of really interesting synthesis approaches, ranging from flexible wavetable and granular capabilities to the unique Particle, Resonator and Kernel synthesis modes. There’s a ton of deep modulation and filtering options on offer too.
When we reviewed the Iridium Core earlier this year, we described it as offering “boundless amounts of creativity in the smallest of footprints”. If you’re looking for a deep synth to get lost in, this should keep you occupied for a very long time.
Say what you want about Behringer and its approach to synth emulations – or ‘tributes’ as the company prefers – but you can’t knock it for value. This weekend you can pick up Behringer gear over at Thomann for some ludicrously cheap prices.
There are too many instruments on offer to name all of them, but a few stand out as highlights. At a price of £235, the Sequential-inspired Pro-800 is stupidly cheap for an analogue polysynth. Elsewhere, Behinger’s original synth Deepmind 6 has lots of power and flexibility for its price. A steal at less than £400.
I own the RD-8 and RD-9 drum machines, inspired by Roland’s TR-808 and TR-909 respectively, and I think they’re really solid for the money. Obviously, it’s simply not worth spending the money on a real 808 or 909 in 2024. Roland’s own recreations are great, but what I like most about Behringer’s takes are their satisfyingly chunky size and rugged sequencers. While their current prices aren’t actually a Black Friday deal – they’ve simply come down recently – at under £250 a pop it’s still hard to argue.
Personally, I have no real experience with Behringer’s Eurorack modules, so I can’t vouch for them, but the prices look very tempting. £1,150 for the System-55 is a crazily cheap price for a full modular system.
Version 2 of Elektron’s Digitakt sampler-come-drum machine dropped earlier this year. While v2 is undoubtedly more powerful than the original in almost every way, it doesn’t fundamentally change what made the original Digitakt great. In short, while Digitakt 2 is the best version, Digitakt v1 is still an excellent hardware machine – and because v2 now exists, you can pick up the original for a bargain price.
I have the original Digitakt at home, and although I’ve recently reviewed and enjoyed my time with Digitakt 2, the original still provides a great source of hands-on beat-making inspiration. While v1 has fewer audio tracks, it still packs an excellent, deep sequencer, powerful modulation tools and can work smoothly within your DAW thanks to Elektron’s Overbridge software. For a price below £500, I certainly wouldn’t feel bad about missing out on the latest version.
Arturia’s hybrid MiniFreak synth has quickly become one of my go-to tools. What I love about it is its easy-to-use yet broad digital synthesis engine. This lets users combine a multitude of synthesis approaches, including wavetable, granular, FM, additive and more. These are deep and powerful tools, but MiniFreak’s neat interface and user-friendly mod matrix make programming sounds a breeze.
MiniFreak pairs this engine with powerful, gorgeous digital effects. Its smooth analogue filter is the cherry on the cake.
Andertons has a deal on the stylish-looking all-black Stellar Edition. I’ve seen the original version for cheaper than this, but it’s a nice discount for the special edition and a good price overall.
Novation’s Circuit Tracks has always been a lot of instrument for the money. It has two capable digital polysynth engines, four sample-based drum tracks and four MIDI channels that make it perfect for driving external hardware gear.
Honestly, there are deeper synths out there if you’re interested in sound design – to get the most out of Circuit you’ll need to use the browser-based editor – but this makes a really great hub for a studio setup. Its sequencer is fast and surprisingly flexible too. On top of all this, it’s down to a really low price this weekend.
